BESW on vampires through ages

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 12:45

Going for thematic resonance, would Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead be better paired with Henry's Crime or Stranger than Fiction?

Either would highlight existentialist themes of the value of choice even in a non-determinist world; the Henry's Crime pair would emphasize responsibility for unintended consequences while the Stranger than Fiction pair would focus on wrestling with the nature of identity and responsibility when choice is removed.

humn

Why not throw in Waiting for Godot? That's how I learned Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but you just gave my browser a 21st century workout

BESW

I'm not sure which is a stronger double feature though--Henry's Crime for the contrast, or Stranger than Fiction for two ways of exploring/responding to the same situation. Thoughts?

Because I don't want to use Waiting for Godot.

I've got a list of movies I want to show some friends, and I'm pairing them up to create interesting resonances between the double features.

So whichever film I don't use, it'll go back into the list and find a different pairing later.

Sometimes it's obvious stuff like pairing Get Out with Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, sometimes it's a bit more obscure like Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Predator.

...or Ian McKellan's Richard III with Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.

(Aside from the obvious Darth Vader joke at the beginning of Richard III, Richard is the template around which we draw our scheming evil villains and Darth Sidious is an excellent example of that cultural gestalt.)

doppelgreener

@BESW Henry's Crime may be useful for a relaxation from absurdism (or at least, seems to be one from my reading about these films) and into... maybe... fun jackanapery?

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:01

True, I do like to also consider tonal contrasts (I try to leave us on an "up" vote for the night).

Henry's Crime is... well, both Henry and Stranger are romances, but Henry's more of a romantic drama while Stranger is more romantic comedy.

Henry probably ends on a more definitively "high" note.

...yeah, given the downer ending of R&GAD, Henry's Crime may be a good counterbalance tonally and thematically.

humn

What is your audience? Some who want to watch nonstop or some who want to stop every few minutes to compare notes?

BESW

We pause the films to talk about 'em for a few minutes when the urge strikes, which is usually two to five times per film. We also heckle MST3K style.

humn

Perfect for light fare!

BESW

(The 1986 film Vamp! is a lot more watchable once you've noticed that for most of the film they only had two light gels, green and purple.)

humn

(lots more to work out the browser)

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:10

Vamp! is awesome when Grace Jones is on screen. The rest of the time it's best as heckle fodder.

humn

"awesome" = scary

BESW

Yeah... that film made some very weird production choices.

humn

... from what YouTube reveals, vamp is truly camp ... and I see what you mean about green and purple!

BESW

It's got a lot of seemingly unintentional tonal shifts, which overall make it even more camp than it was ever trying for.

The first act is the setup for a college-buddy road trip plot that dies moments into the second act and is never seen again.

It honestly feels like they grafted the first act of a different script onto it.

humn

Can happen. Now I'm looking for the full version.

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:18

We watched it in pairing with the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, partly because vampires and partly because they were both clearly cases of egregious executive meddling with what was probably originally a very good concept.

humn

Ever mo promo!

BESW

(The Buffy TV show exists because Whedon hated what happened to his film script so much.)

There are a lot of vampire movies in my list, because there are a lot of fascinating vampire movies out there and I make kind of a hobby of studying the vampire's progression through pop culture.

humn

Turns out that Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is one I saw perhaps every episode.

Also Dark Shadows (mostly in reruns)

Both just to hang out with friends.

BESW

I have not seen as much Dark Shadows as I'd like.

humn

There is no way to make it through even 5 minutes without stopping for a guffaw.

You can see the strings!

doppelgreener

Jun 16, 2017 13:24

I haven't seen as much Dark Souls as I'd like

[makes notes to play it more this evening]

humn

Vampire shows bring people together.

For (s)laughter!

BESW

Also good vampire films/shows: The Hunger, Blacula, Ultraviolet (the 1998 BBC series, not the film), the 1925 Phantom of the Opera.

humn

How about Cat People? On the margin?

BESW

I haven't seen either of them.

humn

Right, two versions.

Both, if I remember, have people being infected to become nonhuman.

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:33

Yes, well, arguably Hulk is also about that. "Vampire" is a nebulous concept, but I'm not sure Cat People qualifies for me.

humn

Good one!

BESW

(And I consider both the Phantom of the Opera and Edward Cullen to be vampires in a fairly classical 19th-century sense.)

humn

Never thought of Phantom in those terms but can see it now.

(Don't even know who Edward Cullen is but the internet will out. did.)

BESW

The Phantom is, actually, very specifically in the Dracula mold.

(Right down to their changing roles in pop culture over the intervening decades.)

humn

Catching on.

Is "they only come out at night" an aspect you're playing with?

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:39

Eh. That's an invention of the film industry and was seriously optional until filmmakers realised how dramatic and symbolic it looked.

Dracula's supernatural powers were diminished in daylight, but he got around just fine. Carmilla and Lord Ruthven didn't have any problem with sun at all. Varney the Vampire... well, arguably he may have just been a wretched man suffering from horrible delusions.

humn

Vlad the Impaler certainly got sunburned now and then.

BESW

Stoker's ideas for Dracula came from what we'd now call werewolf lore, as much as what we'd recognise as vampire lore.

Mithrandir

@humn Oh, thanks for reminding me that I was going to reread The Gate of Days.

humn

(more to look up!)

BESW

Before Dracula hogged the spotlight, Lord Ruthven, Varney, and Carmilla were the famous pop culture vampires of the 19th century, but they were standing in a large crowd.

humn

Jun 16, 2017 13:44

(and more to look up!)

In the meanwhile, does dual personality tickle as well?

BESW

Vampires became very popular after an unscrupulous publisher released The Vampyre as the work of Lord Byron rather than of Lord Byron's doctor.

Not really. Vampires, to my eyes, are reflections of the neurotic societal undercurrents of the time in which they live. They have some common qualities, but they're generally more thematic than literal.

humn

Undercurrents that suck our vitality?

Very political if so.

(I have a news show on right now)

doppelgreener

In older movies, vampires are regularly indulgent recluses in great manors. In current modern depictions I often see them in secluded, sorta-slummy back-alley locations, often dealing with drugs in some form.

BESW

The vampire is a fear of what lies hidden in society, which changes over time; Lord Ruthven literally exposed the corruption of the elite and degraded the poor. Dracula was an Eastern European man coming to take English land and women. Carmilla fed on the blood of the peasantry but took real sustenance from her emotional bond to the nobility. Vampires were external monsters preying on what was good in society, with no chance of redemption or sympathy.

humn

Chime in! Those can be taken as very societal/political allusions.

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:52

Louis and Lestat reflected a very different kind of societal paranoia: Anne Rice was writing in a time when American society was being forced into some self-reflection, so her vampires are human. Monstrous, but horrified by their own monstrosity, and ultimately a pathetic, sympathetic portrayal of flawed humans struggling with overwhelming desires thrust upon them.

humn

I've tried to coin "Frankenstein syndrome," where someone knows they cause harm while trying to fit in.

BESW

We see the same kind of progression in the Phantom of the Opera, from horrific monster who is literally killed by having someone show him a moment of compassion, to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical hunk who Just Needs To Be Loved.

humn

Yes.

Wouldn't everything be sweet if all we had to do was behave and be rewarded?

BESW

So in terms of physical features it makes a lot of sense, historically, that Edward Cullen can go into the daylight but he sparkles in it: like Dracula, he's exposed in the daylight. And his crystalline beauty is a reflection of historical vampiric charm, updated through a century of film casting handsome actors as shorthand for animal charisma.

To my eyes, though, Edward Cullen is not thematically the vampire in Twilight. That role is Bella's.

She's the embodiment of middle-class anxiety over its own privilege, paralyzed between being convinced she deserves nothing and being upset that she doesn't have everything.

humn

That last sentence!

BESW

Jun 16, 2017 13:59

Her toxic neurosis is the driving force of much of the plot, and infects her relationships with everyone she meets--much like Carmilla's emotional bond with her prey sucked the life from them.

Edward's own neuroses match Bella's like right and left gloves, and Twilight would be a most excellent story if it were not presented as a touching romance but rather as the horrific tale of two toxic personalities who enable each other to inflict their combined influence on the world.

humn

That might be engineering, but what you said about tension between deserving nothing and not having everything!

BESW

(Also if it had a better editor. Or possibly any editor at all.)

doppelgreener

I recall being disappointed in high school to learn that Edward's sparkling skin was not from, say, frost crystals from undeathly cold skin, but actually just literally diamonds. Chances of redemption via actually being hardcore & cool lost.

humn

(previous sentence written before seeing the latest sentence before it)

BESW

Left to themselves, both Bella and Edward would've quickly shriveled up and died, emotionally if not (at least in Edward's case) literally. But they support and enable each other by justifying and reinforcing their respective self-esteem problems, making them functional enough together that they can bring a world of hurt down on everything around them.

It reminds me of themes in The Hunger, which was in turn loosely based on Carmilla but with fewer lesbians (which might surprise anyone who's seen The Hunger).

humn

Jun 16, 2017 14:07

I wish my comparative literature friend were here to see this. In their stead, I'm sure glad to.

BESW

Like I said, vampires through pop culture is kind of a hobby.

Mithrandir

That's... brilliant. In both meanings.

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